Ex-Visva Bharati VC, registrar declared guilty in forgery case

Former Vice-Chancellor Dilip Kumar Sinha, ex-registrar Dilip Kumar Mukherjee and a one-time woman professor of the Visva Bharati University, set up by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore, were pronounced guilty in a case of conspiracy and forgery by a lower court in the Birbhum district on Wednesday.

The quantum of punishment will be announced by the Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Court, Bolpur, on Thursday.

The ACJM Arvind Mishra held all three guilty under various sections of forgery Act (IPC sections 467. 468. 469, 471 and 475) as also for criminal conspiracy (IPC 120B).

The three may get a maximum seven-year imprisonment.

According to the prosecution, Deb, an undergraduate, joined the university as a lecturer in Mathematics in 1997 during Sinha's vice-chancellorship by producing forged xerox marksheets of Calcutta University, Jadavpur University and Visva-Bharati University, claiming she had cleared B.Sc, M.Sc and M.Phil examinations.

Sinha, who served as VB VC from June 26, 1995 - June 25, 2001, became an associate in the crime as he had attested the forged marksheets as genuine by using his seal as a Rashbehari Ghosh professor of Calcutta University without mentioning a date.

The then registrar Mukherjee got sucked into the case as he did not carry out his responsibility to verify Deb'a testimonials submitted on the day of her joining (January 27, 1997) by comparing them with the original certificates.

"In order to facilitate Deb's recruitment, he did not check any of the testimonials on the day of her joining," said special public prosecutor Nabakumar Ghosh.

The forgery came to light 17 years back in 2002 when Deb applied for her enrolment for a Ph.D thesis.

The then departmental head and the university board of studies asked her to appear with all her original certificates, but she produced police complaints stating all her certificates and her marksheets had been misplaced. She also wrote to the university saying she was withdrawing her application to be enrolled for Ph.D.

The university authorities then made enquiries with the universities concerned and came to know the Xerox certificates submitted by her were forged, as she never cleared those exams from these universities.

On May 31, 2004, Visva Bharati University lodged a complaint at the Bolpur police station, and after a few days the case was handed over to the West Bengal police's Criminal Investigation Department.

Sinha and Deb were arrested in June, and Mukehrjee in July, 2004. The VBA then put Deb under suspension.

The prosecution filed the chargesheet in the case on March 23, 2005.

--IANS

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